Karen

So…what is the Monday Poll?

Well, it isn’t exactly a poll. It’s more of a constantly evolving (devolving?), somewhat random list of questions I’ve been putting out to readers every Monday morning for the past 11 (!) years. (It’s like a kickstart for your brain.) I’ve always enjoyed reading your answers in the comments, and I hope you enjoy reading mine.

1. I believe in the healing power of…

Catnaps.

2. Would you rather have 20 pieces of incredibly cute costume jewelry or one valuable, classic piece of fine jewelry?

So, I’m torn because I know myself really well, and I know that I tend to lose jewelry, so the 20 pieces are really tempting because I would probably wear each piece until I lost it, and repeat the cycle until I went through all 20 pieces.

Of course, if I opted for the valuable jewelry, I could hawk it at a classy pawn shop and perhaps buy myself a new sink. 🙂

3. How well do you think you could drive a semi truck?

If push came to shove and, say, I were in a Sandra Bullock Speed situation, I could work it out.

I would need the pressure, though, in order to rise to the occasion.

4. How do you feel about graffiti?

I have mixed feelings about it. I remember commuting into the city from my parents’ house in Union City back in the day and seeing graffiti along the side of the freeway and the sides of buildings and thinking that there’s a beauty to the color and the angles and the energy of the art, but I’ll be driving through town now and see someone tag somebody’s fence and think to myself, Oh, hell no. If that were my fence I’d be so mad.

5. If I could look inside your middle school or high school Caboodle, what makeup (if any) would I find?

Let’s do high school because that’s when my collection was bigger and much more interesting. 🙂 In freshman year I had a bunch of Clinique goodies in my pink and mint green Caboodle. They were my prized possessions. I had a magenta blush, which I believe was called New Clover; two eyeshadows (One pink and one bright blue… It was very late ’80s.) and a magenta lipstick.

I’m also 99% sure I had a Clinique loose powder, too.

My collection was small by today’s standards, but I think a lot of girls today have more makeup because they have access to more information, like YouTube videos and the Internet (obvs), but it was enough for me back then.

The Oscars!

Did you watch last night? I don’t have cable tv anymore so I checked the results on my phone throughout the evening, and even though I haven’t watched most of the nominated films (life with a two year old!), I was happy to see Allison Janey and Sam Rockwell take home awards because I’ve always thought they were great.

If there was an award for Best Cat Lady in a Real Life Drama, I would hope that I would at least have a fighting chance at winning. 🙂

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

P.S. Here are the questions to copy and paste with your answers in a comment:

1. I believe in the healing power of…
2. Would you rather have 20 pieces of incredibly cute costume jewelry or one valuable, classic piece of fine jewelry
3. How well do you think you could drive a semi truck?
4. How do you feel about graffiti?
5. If I could look inside your middle school or high school Caboodle, what makeup (if any) would I find?

Good morning, gorgeous! The birthday lasagna is in the oven, and I’m about to pick up Connor’s cake for her birthday party. (I’ll post a picture. It’s a three-layer lemon cake with pink ombre rosettes going up the sides!) As usual, I’m running around at the last minute, so I’m going to keep my makeup simple. Maybe something with the MAC Padma Lakshmi collection.

Before I go do some quick tornado blending (you gotta do what you gotta do!), here are some stories that caught my bronzed eye this week.

• Wow, it looks like this is finally gonna happen. Cosmetics and personal-care products are about to come under federal regulatory scrutiny after 80 years. There’s a tentative agreement on a proposal that would require companies to register with the FDA (right now companies don’t even have to register at all) and require the FDA to evaluate a number of ingredients for safety.

  Currently, the FDA doesn’t require manufacturers of products like shampoo, deodorant, lipstick or eye makeup to report safety problems. That’s right! Any ol’ Joe Shmoe could add shoe polish or bird poop to your eyeshadow, and it would be totally “legal.”

• Lipstick in powder form is a thing, and all I have to say is, who thought this would be a good idea…? Between the cat, and the kid, and my inherent clumsiness, this is a disaster waiting to happen.

• Whelp, my drugstore beauty wish list just got longer because of this list by the Wirecutter.

  Do you ever visit this site, BTW? They’re owned by the New York Times. I usually check it for reviews on household appliances like plates and vacuums. They do extensive research and testing.

• Yup, more and more shoe brands are getting into makeup. (See: Christian Louboutin.)

  Do you think this is a weird leap?

  I think it’s kind of crazy…because what do ? shoes have to do with ? lipstick, really? But I’m a shoe enthusiast (to put it mildly), so I’m down.

• OK, so this article reads like a Charlotte Tilbury infomercial toward the end, but I got sucked in when Charlotte spilled the beans on what it’s like for her to do celebrity makeup for the Oscars.
• Favorite pics of the week: these images of the Dukha people of Mongolia. They’re a nomadic tribe that has lived in the same region for centuries, and they have a special relationship with the area’s wild animals, including reindeer.

  The pics of the children napping with reindeer melt my ? heart.

• There’s something very Hannibal Lecter about these portraits by photographer Evija Laivina of women wearing Amazon’s weirdest beauty devices, but oh, my goodness, I can’t look away…

  Do these contraptions actually do anything for anyone? They look like horror movie props!

Before I go to bed, I use hand cream and lip balm…but what starlings do before they go to sleep is much more interesting!

Aw, man, this makes me want to feed Michael B. Jordan brownies and ask him how his day went. ?

My favorite song from the Black Panther soundtrack

I am this man. This man is me.

Have a great day! Happy birthday ??? to all the pisces babies out there.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen